Thanks, glad you like the speed. Speed is actually a bit slower on-calc when you have several sub-programs so ideally you'll need to delete most of your calc content before playing if you want max speed but it isn't that bad. I would like to increase the speed further, though, such as only checking for bullet collision when they get around a certain height. A For( loop is out of the question because they're much slower, but here's my code so far for bullet collision >.<

L₁(1)-B→FJ→DIf F>0 and F<5 and D>0 and D<4ThenIf 0<[A](D,FThen[A](D,F)-1→[A](D,FU+100→U{10,20L₁(1)-20,30J-30Asm(prgmSPRITE0→L₂(1EndEndL₁(2)-B→FK→DIf F>0 and F<5 and D>0 and D<4ThenIf 0<[A](D,FThen[A](D,F)-1→[A](D,FU+100→U{10,20L₁(2)-20,30K-30Asm(prgmSPRITE0→L₂(2EndEndL₁(3)-B→FL→DIf F>0 and F<5 and D>0 and D<4ThenIf 0<[A](D,FThen[A](D,F)-1→[A](D,FU+100→U{10,20L₁(3)-20,30L-30Asm(prgmSPRITE0→L₂(3EndEndL₁(4)-B→FO→DIf F>0 and F<5 and D>0 and D<4ThenIf 0<[A](D,FThen[A](D,F)-1→[A](D,FU+100→U{10,20L₁(4)-20,30O-30Asm(prgmSPRITE0→L₂(4EndEndEnd

Good news: The engine now supports multiple enemy formations and can now have more than 1 kind of ship per formation!

All bosses are identical, though, except that they have more targets to destroy as you progress through the game and the final boss has blue-gray targets that takes 9 hits to destroy.

Right now I am reducing the amount of bullets you can shoot at once to 3 instead of 4, because when I add the HUD your ship will be moved up by 30 pixels anyway so it will take less time for each bullet to travel.

Thanks. By the way I am thinking about adding power ups like in Galaxian and Star Fox. Lasers would shoot an entire vertical line instantly and bombs would damage a large radius area by 1 or 2 pts, but you would need to be accurate when detonating them. As for the laser I was considering allowing shooting with the Up arrow or Del key, which would let me charge the normal weapon, but at the cost of not being able to move during charging. What do you think?

Good news: The game is almost complete at this point. I might need help optimizing the bullet collision code since I never made a multi-bullet shooting routine before but so far the game runs at decent speed for hybrid BASIC. I don't have time to make a readme right now, but you can download the game in the first post

There are 18 enemy waves (including 6 bosses) and you have 5 lives. You gain between 100 and 900 points depending of the enemy ship/target and highscores are now supported. If you beat the entire game, the HUD changes color and you restart with only 1 life (although you keep your score, so you can rack it up as high as you can).

Thanks, and nice to see you again JamesV. Are you still doing music or working on calculator projects, by the way?

It's good to check in to the scene again, I haven't been keeping up on things until the last few days. Since finishing up with my band back in March, I haven't done much with music, apart from filling in for my Dad's band for a local show. But I'm involved in a new project with some friends now that will be a nice little hobby band

I just picked up my CE the other day for the first time in a few months, so we'll see if that leads to anything in the near future!

Aah I see. Yeah I was a bit worried since I thought leaving Belle Haven would make you more into calculators, then you suddenly disappeared so I thought you called it quit again like around 2006 or so. But again I also sometimes stop coding for long stretches of time. I can't wait to see what the new band is.